patrick.net

You’d have to be pretty gullible to believe you’re going to get a $600K house for $100K, but they’re obviously getting some folks to believe it.

Don't get me wrong, alot of those sites are just bullshit, and you probably won't get a house that cheap(at least not right now :) ), but you can save alot of money on buying a foreclosure if you know what you are doing. There are three phases of foreclosure (lis pending, auction, REO) and the most profitable is lis pending, when the owner is in trouble, you can negotiate directly with them. The only way you can make money in this phase is if the owner has a good size of equity in the property..... in this market, many of those in trouble have already eaten their equity so it isn't going to be very profitable....Another thing, there is going to be a huge crash coming and we don't know how far the fall is so we don't know what a good price is until after the fact. There is way too much uncertainty in this market to even consider buying in any way, shape or form.

ScottC talked a lot about all the work that goes into the foreclosure business and how you’re often lucky if you don’t get a home that’s been completely gutted.

Not when it's in lis pending......that is when the owner still lives there, I doubt the owner is going to gut their own house while they still live there. You have to get in touch with them personally and actually go into their house. You negotiate by offering to buy the house from them for less than market value in exchange for some of their equity back and saving them from bankruptcy. You are actually helping them by doing this while at the same saving yourself money....but like I say, right now it isn't a good idea being that we are heading for a falling market without a clue as to how deep the drop is....and take a realtors advice with a grain of salt, especially when it takes away from their own business.

Well, foreclosures aren't for everybody, you have to know what you are doing....it is usually the person who buys the foreclosure that does the scamming.

Anyway look at this. Looks like the mortgage brokers are having their go at the cheap advertising on the craiglist site.

[snip]
The Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan, said that 80% of Homeowners are in the wrong Mortgage program. We educate our clients, so they can choose the product that best fits their financing needs. Many "Mortgage Brokers" offer "non existent"
Rates, or leave important pieces of information out of their extremely low rates.

They are also stepping on one another.

What do you guys think? Are we slowing down b/c we’re in the holidays, or because the economy is really bad?

Lola

I am thinking that the housing market is slowing lately due to a few factors: Holiday season, very high prices causing more and more people to get priced out and forego buying, and rising interest rates. The economy is not (yet) really bad--surprisingly it keeps chugging along pretty well. I think that when and if it gets bad, it will be the housing market slowdown/crash that drags down the economy. Possibly this winter or spring. I doubt we can see a last gasp rally out of the housing market, but ya never know...

@all y'all: The lack of now freaking out in this thread vis a vis the talking nazi monkey menace is deeply disturbing.

@SQT: I can't imagine the pressure to buy mid 30's in sac.

@RPatrick: Yeah, I'm just ask jacked as you are. Why become a hipster democrat, when you can become a frothing-at-the-mouth-spittle-flecked-consipiracy-theory-spouting fascist like me? Chicks *so* dig it. I just drop into the black helicopter US out of UN rant at the bar, and it's like *BAM*! Chicks everywhere.

This is especially true in the Bay Area.

I am now freaking out,
prat

Huh? What? My skimming skills must be slipping. Where is the frothing at the mouth spittle flecked conspiracy theorist rant? Did it get deleted? Damn.